What Were People Searching for on YouTube During the Game?

Each year, YouTube sees a big spike in ad-related searches during and after the Super Bowl as sports fans — and non-sports-fans — check out the game’s most memorable commercials.

Over the first half of the 2012′s game, top rising searches included “bud light platinum commercial,” “OKGo needing getting” (a new music video previewed by Chevrolet) and “m&m commercial,” a reference to the spot that introduced the Ms. Brown character.

Heading into the fourth quarter, “Doritos superbowl commercial” and “David Beckham superbowl commercial” were trending.

Other top searches we saw late in the game: “clint eastwood commercial” and “betty white super bowl commercial.” Afterward, Samsung’s ad caused a spike in searches for “i believe in a thing called love.”

Over the weekend, Chevy’s Mayan “end of the world” ad titled “2012″ became a top trending video and was one of the most-shared and most-viewed clips.

As we noted last week, 2012 has seen a pre-Super Bowl ad bonanza, with many of the top commercials either being teased or posted in-full well in advance of the game. In fact, Super Bowl ads or “ad teasers” were watched over 30 million times on YouTube before the big weekend this year.

In 2011, Volkswagon’s ad “The Force” went viral before the game and picked up roughly 10 million views heading into the big day. Seeming to build off that trend, the pre-Super Bowl activity we saw in 2012 was even higher and spread across significantly more brands.